Omega Point - Part II
Teilhard wasn’t the end point, but his Omega Point is. But that particular metaphorical baton still had to be passed to those next in line.
And those who took it brought us - among other things - ‘Evolutionary Ethics’, ‘Planetary Transition‘, and…
‘Using a bioweapon to control fertility‘
In part 1, we went through how Pierre Teilhard de Chardin represented the spiritual side of Plotinus’s coin with Jantsch occupying the other, and with Karl Marx, Paul Carus, Alexander Bogdanov, and Vladimir Vernadsky each occupying one of the four spaces in Jantsch’s transdisciplinary framework, based on Neoplatonism; purposive, normative, pragmatic, empirical.
We then implemented the below table, to reflect the spiritual side (Teilhard), the metaphysical (Plotinus), and the materialistic (Jantsch) of said neoplatonism.
Let’s kick off Part Two on the concept of the Noosphere, because the history of that term itself adds to the intrique. And that is conveniently detailed in the 2023 article, ‘What is the noosphere? Planetary superorganism, major evolutionary transition and emergence‘1 penned by Clement Vidal.
In 1922-23, Vladimiar Vernadsky visited Paris to lecture about geochemistry and the biosphere. This led to discussions involving Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who was the first to use the word ‘noosphere’, in an essay which remained unpublished for decades. The split between the two briefly worked as such - while Vernadsky dealt with the materialistic side of the definition, Teilhard took the spiritual, flip side of that coin. Or at least that’s the official story, because in reality Teilhard proved himself to be an excellent systems thinker, identifying no less than 13 critical functions at the planetary level, revealing that Teilhard in fact saw the planet as a global super-organism - or a hierarachical supersystem, much in line with that identified by Kenneth Boulding in 1956..
Teilhard argued that the noosphere would ultimately lead to the Omega Point, a state at which man would transcend to, essentially, become God. But of further importance are the following two quotes -
‘Today, the noosphere as a superorganism can be much better articulated thanks to Living Systems Theory, a theory of the living that has been applied from cells and organs to society and supranational levels‘
Living Systems Theory, in short, is Boulding’s Hierarchical General Systems Theory applied to all living matter, from cells to supranational systems2.
The other quote of interest is this one -
‘Robert Aunger (2017) also used LST to argue that the key role of morality is to regulate the human superorganism.‘
And that’s really interesting, not just because the common understanding is that morality is the individual aspect of right vs wrong (where ethics deal with the collective) - but also because the stated objective behind the creation of the Fabian Society was stated as such -
‘That an association be formed whose ultimate aim should be the reconstruction of Society in accordance with the highest moral possibilities‘.
The first few pages further drags in
Julian Huxley
The ‘Planetary Transition’.
Using a bioweapon to control fertility,
Using health markers on a planetary scale.
The paper continues -
‘In the context of the noosphere, LST is most useful when it is used as a heuristic, to understand where the strengths and weaknesses of this forming superorganism lie‘
Living Systems Theory, in short, is a problem-solving tool, which allows you to pinpoint the greater issues in the management of the super-organism. And the management of said goes through feedback mechanisms (the management of which is cybernetics).
‘… developing intentionally the global super-organism is very challenging, and traditional centralized design, panning and controt are unukely to oe appropiate and effective.‘
… and thus, the call for an application of General Systems Theory…
‘A promising road to grow and manage a complex system such as the global superorganism is guided self-organization‘
Which is where Erich Jantsch once again rears his head3, in yet another Robert Maxwell published report relating to systems theory. We have self-organisation, Ervin Laszlo acting as the general editor of the series of ‘Systems Science and World Order’, … and we have a chapter on ethics and morality. More on that in a bit.
‘It can be seen as a mixed strategy invalving both top-down requirements that set overall constraints, which in turn enable bottom-up self-organization‘
And you know what - that completely fits the definition of ‘subsidiarity’ as outlined by Tony Blair. Because that, ultimately, is controlled top down just as well.
Vidal then goes to reveal somewhat authoritarian streaks -
‘… does humanity really need three alobal navigation solutions?‘
You know, Vidal, that’s up for the market to decide. Certainly not you, nor any other central planner. Besides, competition makes for a healthy marketplace. But Vidal’s not quite done -
‘In my view, the boundary of the noosphere should aim to become a planetary superorganism, that is, not only a human superorganism but also the planet as a whole, including the geosphere, the biosphere, humanity and the technosphere.’
The controlling mechanism relating to this description incidentally happens to be Zev Naveh’s Total Human Ecosystem - which in no uncertain terms describe top-down scientific socialism, guided by always-on global surveillance. He then outlines the role of cybernetics and general systems theory within the framework of Living Systems Theory, and details that the noosphere is yet to be described through cybernetics. And in that regard, let’s quickly return to Jantsch and his 1970 paper - ‘Inter- and Transdisciplinary University: A Systems Approach to Education and Innowation‘4.
This paper is really important, for a number of reasons. I have sourced it on a number of occasions, one example being this article on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
First off, it essentially describes Plotinus’s Neoplatonism adopted to the material world. The purposive is the equivalent to Plotinus’s notion of ‘the one’, and so forth, but Jantsch not only described the bottom 3 layers through the normative (ethics, standard, rules), pragmatic (organisation), empirical (observation/material unit of account), but he even described how these levels connect - through the discipline-oriented departments, function-oriented departments, and the systems design laboratories. And as previously said, when you hear Ervin Laszlo referred to as a ‘systems designer’, that’s because he operates at the very highest level, synthesising the purposive (meaning, objective) with the normative (ethics, standards, codes).
The empirical and pragmatic levels - the discipline-oriented departments - are synthesised in descriptive fashion through General Systems Theory. And that’s what Fabian Socialite CP Snow’s fake ‘Two Cultures’ spat was ultimately all about.
And the pragmatic and normative, ie the function-oriented disciplines? Those are bridged through Noam Chomsky’s Universal Grammar5.
And though this might sound cryptic, it really isn’t. Genetal Systems Theory allows for a common, mechanistical description of natural and social sciences, while Universal Grammar is intended to allow for the same, bridging social science with the normative, say, ethics. Thus, it allows for a description relating to ‘ethical organisation’.
Vidal goes on -
‘One may argue that the noosphere transition is unique in the sense that there are no other noospheres to provide competition and selection mechanisms. Two avenues of research to tackle this issue are to explore virtually, with computer simulations, alternative global futures and, thus, to make the competition happen only virtually (see, e.g., Helbing et al., 2012). Another approach would be to create a ‘vertical market’ opening a trade and competition of various governance mechanisms, especially within nations‘
What he says is that as the Noosphere is global (comprising all collective human thought), to locate our best future pathway towards the Omega Point we… must use computer simulation to guide us.
I intentionally left out the second part, because that obviously won’t happen in terms of global governance. What they will however do, is allow for codification of ethics ito law taking place at the national level - but not because they care for sovereign rights per se, but because it allows for a tighter ‘cultural fit’. Thus, explicitly because it allows them to craft laws, better targeted at the local population.
‘Again, focusing on human groups and human institutions… successful management at the planetary level should control the essential variables of the geosphere, biosphere and noosphere, so they could sustain each other in the long term…‘
What he just described is Zev Naveh’s Total Human Ecosystem.
And in the section on ‘Noosphere as a Planetary Emergence’ we find -
‘The idea that the noosphere is leading to a planetary consciousness has been explored mostly by new age thinkers such as Arguelles. However, a more theoretically grounded approach is to use modern models of consciousness such as information integration, adaptive resonance and global workspace and to apply them to the noosphere, especially to the information dynamics circulating on the web and on social media…‘
It all comes together. He speaks of the web and social media, but the long-term objective logically would be trans-humanism, or more specifically - the BCI. And why? Because BCIs operate with ‘Neuroethics’ integrated, and these are downstream from ‘AI Ethics’, which are downstream from those manifactured ‘Global Ethics’.
Thus, in the future, anyone equipped with BCIs (which will be ‘everyone’, should they have their way) will have their ‘planetary conscience’ quietly whispered, but should people refuse to carry out related ‘suggestions’, the enforcement mechanisms will ensure they’re promptly fired or prosecuted - exactly as we saw happen to those doctors, fired for ‘ethics violations’ during the alleged pandemic.
And thus, said ‘global ethics’ become directive.
Vidal carries on -
‘We suggested earlier that the noosphere as a planetary superorganism would become a truly living system when it could be observed as such from space. This emergence of the noosphere in the galaxy might arise when Earth becomes whole, an entity with its own individuality. The noosphere's inputs and outputs would then become more and more tied to the galaxy and other putative noospheres.‘
All of this is input-output analysis. That’s what it boils down to. Incidentally, that ties right up with Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars.
‘Teilhard developed the omega point theory as an answer that includes an integration of science and religion. I propose to mention two additional potentially emergent features: planetary consciousness and a planet seeking other noospheres‘
The integration of Religion and Science in comtemporary context realistically started with Paul Carus, went through Teilhard, and in contemporary context landed with Ken Wilber, to whom we shall return. But, yeah - this is about the Omega Point, and thus the Spaceship Earth.
The paper finishes by largely repeating the above, but there are a few other items worthy of mention -
'The boundary here is also on humanity so implicitly what is 'good' is to develop humanity...'
That's the common good, with dash of Conscious Evolution (through ethics) to follow.
We also have mention of 'aggregated determinants', which tie up with the ‘determinants’, of which probably the Social Determinants of Health are the most well-known.
A quick note on the chapter on ethics and morality in the Jantsch book referred to above. He goes on to clarity the distinction of ethics versus morality, and how -
‘Quite generally, we can define ethical behaviour as behaviour which enhances evolution.‘
We will return to that paper later, but that quite simply is another breakthtaking coincidence.
‘… human ethics includes the ethics of whole systems demanded by West Churchman‘
… along with Churchman, who synthesised ethics into General Systems Theory.
‘What in the Western world we call ethics is a behavioural code at the social level which is primarily geared to ensure the free unfoldment of the individual. This is the reason why there is so much talk of rights, … Morality, in contrast, is the direct experience of an ethics inherent in the dynamics of evolution.‘
More on that later.
It’s the darndest thing when you realise that Teilhard’s been with you during most of your journey. I generally consider myself to be fairly perceptive, observant and skeptical, but Teilhard… somehow managed to escape my attention throughout most of the past year and a half. First, we have the Rockefeller-funded Conservation Foundation from 1948…
But we also have HT Odum, and Systems Ecology. Though this book was released in 1982, the concept gradually developed, starting already in the 1940s. His first book on the topic co-authored with his brother Eugene, ‘Fundamentals of Ecology’6, was released in 1957. But the fundamental concept itself, leading to the electric circuit equivalent of the cycling of energy in nature took shape through his 1951 paper on ‘The Biogeochemistry of Strontium’7. And this model would later be used in the alleged hoax document, ‘Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars’ reviewed above.
And Teilhard’s ‘Phenomenon of Man’ was released in 1958, and this book incidentally was introduced by Julian Huxley8. That’s of significance, as we shall later see.
And Fraser Darling in 1966 contributed to ‘Future Environments of North America’… he acted chair when the first, ludicrous ‘carbon consensus’ was arrived at in 1963… through the Conservation Foundation.
And in my book, UNESCO’s 1968 Biosphere Conference was pivotal. And though the primary document itself makes no mention, the 25-year follow-up document9 loops in the concept of the biosphere, Vernadsky, and Teilhard.
Then we have 1968 and Erich Jantsch’s ‘Perspectives on Planning’, and General Systems Theory in general (plenty of examples through their annual yearbooks, this is just one). And that book also serves as a major influence relating to the stakeholder approach as far as I’m concerned, especially as it outlines - in detail - the similarities between corporate and governmental governance.
And I originally spent a fair while tracking down the origin of the ‘Ecosystem Approach’, and that led me to the name van Dyne and 1969.
We then have Barbara ‘Spaceship Earth’ Ward’s ‘Only One Earth’ from 1972, but Teilhard is even mentioned - repeatedly - in material out of the Baha’i.
And also 1972, co-founder of the WWF, Max Nicholson - a character who oftens escapes scrutiny - included mention of Teilhard10.
We have the World Wilderness Congress - which led to the creation of the World Conservation Bank in 1987 - and even Edmund de Rothschild himself explicitly referring to Teilhard, with the below being the first report from 1977.
And in 1981, UNESCO11 put12 on13 a symposium14 to celebrate Teilhard.
The ICSU carried on through 1984...
1985 saw the release of ‘Design for Human Ecosystems’, broadly outlining more systems theory... while using a picture which really should feature an eye at the top instead of the world...
There are examples in material released by the IIASA - this one is from 198615.
And also from 1986 we have the NATO Seminar ‘Land and its Uses - Actual and Potential’ - referring to not only Teilhard but also Jantsch.
From 1989, Zev Naveh himself even referred to Teilhard in the context of Landscape Ecology (which led to the Total Human Ecosystem, linked above) -
And though his 2000 paper on the Total Human Ecosystem itself does not expressly mention Teilhard -
In red we have references to the noosphere, biosphere, geosphere, plus the technosphere which certainly is relevant in this context.
In blue we also have references to general systems theory, information theory, cybernetics, with further references to systems which should be adaptive and self-organising, and which should be expressed in mechanistic terms.
In cyan, we further see references to landscape ecology, landscapes, seascapes, and comprehensive landscape planning.
Green brings us Frank Egler, human ecosystem science, Rachel Carsons’ Silent Spring, and the ever-important ethics.
And pink reminds us of the emerging information society (global surveillance), a call for an all-embracing environmental revolution which leads to a higher organisation level driven by global surveillance, and finally the call to eliminate capitalism.
And 1989 saw the release of ‘Earth in the Balance‘ by Al Gore, which not only spoke of Teilhard, but also includes mention of a ‘Digital Earth program’, reminiscent of DestinE and other Digital Twin models.
From 1992 we we have this UNCTED report… and it was they who published the two reports which I still sit on (don’t worry, they’ll be in a future article wrapping up ‘climate change’). And this, even, in the same year in which they detailed the carbon emission trading system.
And specifically, from this report… here’s the then-acting UN General Secretary, Boutros-Boutros Ghali.
In 1999 Robert Muller delivered his ‘ideas’, naturally inclusive of Teilhard…
… and also in 1999, Muller penned ‘The Absolute, Urgent Need for Proper Earth Government‘…
And in 2003, Barbara Marx Hubbard’s ‘Foundation for Conscious Evolution‘ published this story - ‘What is Conscious Evolution?‘16. It’s more Teilhard, more Rockefeller, more Laszlo, and more Huxley.
And Robert Muller then returned in 2005 with his framework detailing ‘Proper Earth Government’.
And also from 2005 - Stephen Rockefeller and the Earth Charter17. A document which further goes to repeatedly hammer the point of the ‘global ethic as an urgent need’.
2010 saw an early draft of the ‘Earth Charter Handbook’18, co-authored by Earth Council Alliance co-founder Tommy Short (with another notable co-founder being Maurice Strong), and Mary Evelyn Tucker, the president of the American Teilhard Association who in 2003 had her book ‘Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase’ published by Open Court Publishing19… incidentally founded by Paul Carus.
Carus also launched a second journal named ‘The Monist’20, which can be seen as a more specialised version of the Open Court. And that’s entirely appropriate in this conversation, as Carus sought to synthesise Religion and Science through… Ethics21.
‘Man must study his own self; he must understand which of his desires are good and which are bad. He must inquire into the nature of the authority of conduct which prescribes duties to him. He must strengthen that part of his soul which aspires to perform duties and even identify his very being with the behests of the authority of conduct : He must become an incarnation of God.‘
What Paul Carus is saying, simply put, is that man must aspire to perform duties with moral and spiritual alignment through a universal force or principle… an idea, typical of monistic thinking.
2015 saw the release of Barbara Marx Hubbard’s ‘Conscious Evolution’ featuring a very Teilhard’ian progression towards the Omega Point, plus - of course - explicit mention of the man himself.
And 2015 of course also saw the release of Pope Francis’s Laudato Si, which in short is wholesale replacement of religious tradition with environment quack science at the Vatican. It makes a complete mockery of Catholicism. And that also included a reference to Teilhard, which frankly is somewhat astonishing.
But Pope Francis wasn’t actually the first pope to speak of Teilhard. Ratzinger did in 2009 as well, and ‘Towards a Global Ethics’ author Hans Kung’s been leaning up pretty heavily in his direction the entire time just as well.
And the World Economic Forum became involved in 2015 as well.
In 2020, ‘The Origins of the term Sustainable Development’ was published, drawing heavily upon Thomas Berry and thus by indirection - Teilhard22.
And in 2021, the Southwestern Journal of Theology released this article, dragging in not just Teilhard but transhumanism as well.
Yes, Teilhard has been a passenger on my personal journey for a large part of this process of discovery - without me even realising until very late on. His fundamental conceptual ideology is reflected by a large quantity of reports and literature in general, spanning many decades by now - and it’s this literature I have systematically worked my way through. And Teilhard’s work in many ways is a continuation of Paul Carus’s efforts, as -
Paul Carus was an advocate of monism, the fundamental belief that posits that materialism and spirituality comprise the same substance.
Thus, Carus’s work to bridge Science and Religion (via ethics) travels between monism itself and pantheism.
Pantheism is probably most famously associated with Baruch Spinoza’s book, ‘Ethics’, positing God’s immanence; that God is present in everything - a book which incidentally had him excommunicated by leading Rabbis.
The related but extended belief that God indeed not only is immanent, but that God comprise the material and a little bit extra is titled panentheism.
And panentheism can serve as a bridge between pantheism and dualism.
But how? Let’s consider this in terms of a mathematical equation, where ‘N’ is a complex number, which in addition to a ‘real’ number also has an ‘imaginary’ component.
Scientific Monism is ultimately based on materialistic monism, the belief that matter is all that exists, thus - Materialism = N, Spiritual = 0.
Pantheism puts science equal to spiritual; Materialism = Spiritual, operating in the same, ‘real’ dimension.
Panentheism adds an additional factor; Materialism = Spiritual + N, where N as a complex number only has its imaginary component set.
Dualism considers the material and spiritual operating in separate dimensions.
Thus, should you set ‘N’ to 0, panentheism becomes identical to Spinoza’s pantheism, but should you set N to infinity, the real component of materialism becomes irrelevant from the perspective of spirituality. Thus, the material and spiritual are for all sakes and purposes dualistic.
Consequently, what Teilhard produced was the critical pathway, leading to the merging of materialistic monism with the spiritual; science and religion through evolutionary ethics.
And evolutionary ethics then leads to… Huxley. But that links deserve far more scrutiny than as a side note in this article. Instead, let’s head to 2023 and Clement Vidal’s ‘Extending Planetary Health: Global Ethics and Global Governance in the Noosphere‘23 which could not possibly be more explicit -
‘Such deep changes point to the interpretation that humanity is the midst of a unique and unprecedented planetary major evolutionary transition. To go through it successfully, humanity must extend human ethics and governance at planetary scales, that is, think global ethics and global governance.‘
Global Governance through Global Ethics.
Incidentally, Vidal also penned the very first paper covered in this article - scroll up to confirm.
‘To even start to explore the heuristic of health applied at a planetary scale, one needs to entertain the idea of the planet as a superorganism.’
… which aligns terribly well with the structure -
’Although the term “noosphere” etymologically means a sphere of mind, in Teilhard’s writings, he means a superorganism with physiological, anatomical and psychological properties. So to articulate the notion of planetary health, one has to assume a kind of planetary superorganism framework, while avoiding simplistic or totalizing assertions.‘
… described by Teilhard himself.
So it’s at this stage one question comes begging. Because while most of the above links refer to the material aspect, the spiritual appears… somewhat less well-covered. How come it suddenly arrived in the 2015 Vatican encyclical Laudato Si?
Well… that’s where Henri de Lubac, Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, Leo Swidler and others enters the frame. At one of the most controversial (and transformative) ecumenical events in recorded Catholic history -
The Second Vatican Council.
Phenomenal digging. My take, demonic inspired Jesuitism.
Thank you a hundred times over for what you do. As per usual, I have added this to one of my graphs, but it will likely fit into others before I'm done (halfway):
https://embed.kumu.io/3e9c62162793461380a1d4dabf76a408